When is a TD celebration too sexy?
Plus, the NFL field goal record finally falls, Rodger's X's and O's corner, and a devastating lack of awareness by the NFL's leading franchise in devastating quarterback injuries.
Hey all, exciting times here — arguably too exciting! I went to the Team USA Media Summit in New York last week and I’m working on something else that I can’t wait to show to you (hopefully later this week) … but uhhhhhhhhhhh I also crashed super hard yesterday and didn’t finish my college football column.
That column — with added Hugh Freeze thoughts — should be in your inboxes later today. For now, here’s this week’s NFL stuff:
The Two Pumps Controversy
Clearly, officials are not familiar with the rulebook. Rico Dowdle celebrated a touchdown on Sunday with two pelvic thrusts — only two, not three.
And yet, officials flagged Dowdle for unsportsmanlike conduct, even as he repeatedly gestured “TWO” to the officials. Dowdle jokingly told reporters, “We go over stuff like this every week in the meeting room, and I definitely think you’re supposed to get two pumps.”
For those unfamiliar with the source material, Dowdle was referencing a 2014 Key and Peele skit about the NFL’s celebration penalties (which were stricter at the time!) The joke was that the league allowed players two pumps, but not three. (“The duration and intensity doesn’t make any difference!”)
Dowdle’s penalty pushed the extra point back 15 yards, and the Panthers missed it … but luckily, the Panthers beat the Packers anyway, 16-13, in one of the bigger upsets of the weekend.
A funny moment … but one that also reveals a worrisome double standard. In 2020, Aaron Rodgers did the exact same celebration after scoring a touchdown, and officials didn’t throw a flag … even though Rodgers, in fact, did three pumps!
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(Backup quarterback Tim Boyle played the Jordan Peele role as the official inspecting Aaron Rodgers’ pumps. Now that Boyle is out of the NFL after losing every game he ever played in, his logical next move is to release a series of thought-provoking horror classics examining America’s relationship with race.)
So why the two different rulings? I believe it comes down to different interpretations of the league’s unsportsmanlike conduct rule.
There shall be no unsportsmanlike conduct. This applies to any act which is contrary to the generally understood principles of sportsmanship. Such acts specifically include, among others …
( skipping through many acts listed here)
… an act that is sexually suggestive or offensive.
The NFL has highly specific rules about every aspect of the game, down to the weird shape of the ball. (It’s a “prolate spheroid.”) The joke of the Key and Peele skit is that the NFL rulebook is so lengthy, arcane, and impossibly precise that it even details the exact number of pelvic thrusts when a celebration becomes too sexy.
The truth, however, is funnier. Despite over-legislating every other part of the sport, the league just says officials should flag celebrations that are “sexually suggestive” and leaves it at that. Officials are on their own to decide what they think is sexy. In 2016, the league’s officiating office reportedly made a video memo to help refs understand what is and isn’t sexually suggestive. The league should upload it to OnlyFans.
Sexuality is a spectrum for referees, and this vagueness makes every single NFL game a potential look into what officials are personally into. What if one ref is simply kinkier than all the other refs? What if there’s a referee who is turned on by spiking the football? Unless we give these officials clear, specific guidelines about what is and isn’t sexy, a team’s season could be derailed by one particularly horny referee.
The officials in Sunday’s Panthers game found Dowdle’s two pelvic thrusts to be “sexually suggestive.” It wasn’t the number of thrusts, but the general sexiness of the act, and Dowdle’s thrusts were sexy, per the NFL and its officials. However, when Aaron Rodgers thrusted in front of all those officials and all those cameras, nobody was turned on even a little bit. It is the official stance of the National Football League that Aaron Rodgers is Not Sexy.
Rodger’s X’s and O’s Corner
Hey guys, I’m debuting a new segment I’d like to call “Rodger’s X’s and O’s Corner.” I’m hoping these insights change the way you watch the game every week.
Today, I’m breaking down Colston Loveland’s last-minute, game-winning touchdown from the chaotic ending of Sunday’s 47-42 Bears victory over the Bengals.
Sorry for getting a little jargon-y in the video there, but hopefully this helps you understand what the Bengals need to fix going forward.
A Big Little Kick
NFL records tend to fall in a feat of out-of-nowhere brilliance. Thousands upon thousands of NFL games have been played, and that makes us think we understand the outer limits of what’s possible. And then one day, somebody shows up and does something nobody has ever done before, as if struck by one of Zeus’ lightning bolts.
Not so much with Cam Little. He set the all-time NFL field goal record with a 68-yarder Sunday, but he had already hit a 70-yarder in the preseason, a kick that easily surpassed Justin Tucker’s previous all-time record of 66 yards … but didn’t count because it was preseason. We had to sit around and wait for Little to get his record-setting kick chance during a regular season game. Little spoke about the weird state of clearly having hit the longest field goal ever, but not really:
“It does suck,” he said. “That means I am just going to go have to out there and make it again.”
Sunday, he got his chance. With the Jags trailing 6-0 before halftime, Little hit a 68-yarder, putting his name in the history books.
Little’s big boot clearly inspired the Jags. After needing an all-time NFL record to put points on the board in the first half, they won 30-29 in overtime.
In 1970, Tom Dempsey hit a 63-yard field goal for the Saints with his toe-less right foot, shattering the previous record of 55 yards. That record held for 43 years, as if it was the peak of human kicking achievement. Several players tied Dempsey’s mark over the years — Jason Elam in 1998, Sebastian Janikowski in 2011, David Akers in 2012 — but human kicking achievement seemed to have plateaued. When Matt Prater finally broke Dempsey’s record in 2013, he only eclipsed the mark by a single yard.
In the first half of the 2025 season alone, we’ve seen three kicks from three different kickers that would’ve broken Dempsey’s mark. (Little from 68, Chase McLaughlin from 65, Brandon Aubrey from 64.) And that doesn’t include Little’s preseason kick, or a 67-yarder by Evan McPherson that came just after a timeout was called.
NFL kickers were 4-for-60 on kicks from 60 yards or longer in the 20th century. They’re 7-for-11 from 60-plus this year alone. We are living in the era of the Superkicker:
Clearly, we’re not done with this record. While Tucker’s record-breaking 66-yarder skimmed off the crossbar, Little hit from 68 with room to spare, and we know he can hit from 70. I think he can Mondo Duplantis it up to 75.
Quick Hits
The Bills beat the Chiefs, 28-21, in this year’s Bills Regular Season Victory Over Kansas City Before Losing To Them In The Playoffs, pushing their regular season win streak to five (despite losing four in a row in the postseason.) You’d think they’d figure it out and start throwing the regular season games, but Josh Allen is too pure for that.
Jayden Daniels dislocated his non-throwing elbow with the Commanders trailing 38-7 with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. When is the correct time to bench a QB in a blowout loss? There’s no right answer. But when you’re THE WASHINGTON COMMANDERS, the NFL’s #1 franchise for Career-Altering Brutal Quarterback Injuries, you should be extra cautious! (Which Career-Altering Brutal Washington Quarterback Injury did you think of first? I went for Alex Smith which is probably #3 on most people’s depth chart!)
Drake London looked like Megatron on Sunday. (The Transformer or the Lions wide receiver, take your pick.) He had three touchdowns, all of them of the I Am Bigger Than You genre, plus a fourth catch that might have been more impressive than the three touchdowns:
… And then the Falcons lost 24-23 after a missed extra point. So not everybody has a superkicker.
Coming back to that Bears-Bengals game … 40-year-old Joe Flacco threw for a career-high 470 yards and four touchdowns. A career high for a 40-year-old in his 199th start! He’d never even hit 400 before! I’m kinda furious at the Bengals for being so bad at tackling that they still lost … but Flacco probably wouldn’t have needed to throw for 470 yards if they could tackle.
Also, Caleb Williams caught two passes for the Bears on two trick plays:
To the best of my knowledge, Williams is the first starting QB ever to catch two passes in a game. Four other players listed as a quarterback have caught multiple passes — Taysom Hill, Kordell Stewart, and Brad Smith, all of whom had hybrid QB-receiver roles, and Josh McCown, who was pressed into WR duty one day when the Lions ran out of receivers.
“I think he can Mondo Duplantis it up to 75.”
I’m not sure if I love or hate the fact that I 1000% understood this reference.
I’ve forwarded the X’s and O’s video to the Bengals front office, they should be giving you a call about a coaching position.